


on film (or between the sheets)

by hylander, nutriscii



Category: SKAM (France)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Boarding School, Alternate Universe - High School, M/M, cinema, i still don't know how to tag so watch out for those i forgot about
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-24
Updated: 2019-09-24
Packaged: 2020-10-27 13:35:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,298
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20761202
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hylander/pseuds/hylander, https://archiveofourown.org/users/nutriscii/pseuds/nutriscii
Summary: Life hasn’t been the smoothest for Lucas in the past couple of months, family wise. When his dad ends up leaving the city to work in Paris, he’s ready to do absolutely anything to be able to stay in his current school and keep his life on tracks. Anything. Even becoming a film student and moving in dorms.OR. A boarding school AU.





	on film (or between the sheets)

**Author's Note:**

> hey guys! i'm excited to share this with you and i'm waiting impatiently for your feedbacks regarding this new story. 🤗💕  
little disclaimer: i graduated in 2014, so i don't know what the 2000s kids are up to these days regarding the BAC and stuff. I also was a film student myself, so the pain and the war flashbacks might be showing 🤷🤦 i hope you'll enjoy it! 
> 
> (the title is from Fall Out Boys' 'Kids Aren't Alright')

**MERCREDI** ** 12:41**

If you were to ask Lucas how he’s managed to find himself in a situation like this, he’d probably have to explain quite a few things, but it’s pretty much a given that one of those things would be that, originally, he doesn’t even care about cinema all that much.

Certainly _not _enough to pick it as his main option for the BAC, that’s for sure.

“Come _on_,” he hisses through gritted teeth as the camera sways dangerously back and forth on its tripod.

Why is this _not_ working? Why does the fucking world hate him that much?

He swears he’s been there for ages, crouching down and trying so fucking desperately to get that stupid camera to somehow fixate itself on that fucking support. His eyes travel around helplessly, but everyone’s busy around him. To be fair, it’s not like he’s exactly counting on it. There’s a schedule on the wall behind him, whose sole purpose is to remind them that they need at least three more pairs of arms each to be able to function with the shitload of tasks they were assigned at the beginning of the week.

A group of three third-years are glued to a computer screen and obsessing over whatever video editing software they’re using, two first-years and Emma are in the middle of filming an interview in the couch area of the movie theater hall, and Arthur’s gone seeing whatever movie he’s been assigned to watch. He briefly considers running outside to beg Alex to come help him, but the guy’s smoking with a third-year friend and Lucas doesn’t think he’d survive the humiliation of being brushed off, so he just sucks it up and focuses back on that stupid tripod instead.

If his teacher is back before he’s set it up-

“What are you doing?”, asks a voice behind him, just after he may or may not have clinked the camera a little harshly out of spite.

Lucas’ head snaps to the side, cheeks burning from being caught red-handed. He’s fucking sweating when his eyes meet Eliott Demaury’s questioning ones.

_Of all fucking people_, he screams to himself.

“I can’t get it to… I don’t know, fixate itself,” he says weakly.

He doesn’t even know the proper words for all that shit, how come are people even expecting him to put it all up _on his own_?

Eliott cocks an eyebrow. “Well, I’d say that smashing it probably won’t solve it, but I’ve never tried that either,” he shrugs with a smirk.

Lucas gives him a look. “Fuck you,” he mumbles, half-astounded by his own bravery. He turns his back on him, since the last thing he needs is some third-year know-it-all to make fun of him, and refocus his attention back on the biggest problem at hand instead. “If Chassart is back before I’ve finished setting this up, he’s gonna fucking kill me.”

“C’mon, let me help,” Eliott says as he crouches down next to him.

He reaches out to grab the camera, and Lucas glances at him from the corner of his eye before letting him. It’s not like he’s gonna do any worse than _nothing_, Lucas admits begrudgingly. Eliott starts fumbling in his jeans pocket, holding the camera nonchalantly from his other hand, and eventually he exhumes a coin that was apparently lost in there. Lucas barely holds back a snide comment — really, who still uses coins these days? —, but every bit of sarcasm fades out instantly as Eliott flips the coin expertly between his fingers. Next thing Lucas knows, he’s using it as a makeshift screwdriver to loosen the screw at the top of the tripod. Just like that, with a few movements that go way too fast for him to process and a satisfying click that he was so desperately waiting for a minute ago, the camera is fixated infuriatingly fast on its support.

He wants to die. Or at least for the fucking ground to open under his feet and swallow him.

Eliott tucks the coin back in his pocket like it’s nothing. “There you go,” he says casually, nudging the camera in his direction.

If only it was arrogance or made-up casualness, but really, no matter that Lucas talked with him a total of _one time_ throughout his life, he knows Eliott is just _that_ guy. Nice. Helpful. Exasperatingly good — a fucking natural. No wonder why he’s become Chassart’s favorite in no time. He’d be mad, jealous even, if being in the man’s good books was on his to-do list, but as it is he just wants to make it through that stupid hellweek that is his first film festival _ever _in one piece, and fuck the rest. If they’re being mistreated this way for a second-class film festival, he can only imagine how shit goes down when the third-years go to Cannes.

Cheeks burning and jaws clenching, he mumbles a small ‘thankyou’.

Eliott shrugs. “Why didn’t you just ask them before?”, he says, pointing at the trio of third-years on their computer from his chin.

“Didn’t want to bother,” Lucas groans, dropping himself flat on the carpeted floor.

It feels like forever since he even sat down, courtesy of a particularly busy morning.

“So you were just gonna wait for Chassart to come and yell at you?”

“Something like that, I guess.”

Eliott snorts and sits down, mirroring Lucas’ position. “Aren’t you supposed to team up with a third-year at least?”

Lucas swallows down a mean comment. _Grow a pair, Lucas, I’m not here to fucking babysit you_, is the last thing Léonie, the bitchy-third-year he was assigned to work with for the week, told him before turning on her heels with an overly exasperated sigh.

“Léonie’s gone to watch one of the movies,” he simply says, settling for a neutral observation.

He’s seen him hanging out with her quite a few times since Eliott arrived last September, the last thing he wants is to piss him off by being a bitch about one of his friends — even if said friend _is_ the actual bitch.

“She told you to fuck off?”

Lucas glances up at Eliott, meeting his disturbingly beautiful eyes. “Kind of, yeah,” he admits.

Eliott hums noncommittally. “Who else is in your group?”

“Emma,” he says, gesturing at the couches where his friend is busy holding the fishpole over the film director they’re interviewing, “but she’s replacing someone missing in another team, and, uh, Maria I think. She’s a first-year.”

Obviously he had tried to team up with Arthur, but Chassart had purposely put them in different groups to ‘avoid any incident’, as he had said — what an asshole, he could have said he just wanted to feed off Lucas’ struggles at this point. He doesn’t bother enquiring about Eliott’s. He knows that one of his classmates, Sarah, has been literally close to fainting when she found out she was in his group.

“You can join mine,” Eliott says casually after a second.

Lucas quirks a brow. “I’m not sure this is how that works.”

“Not my point,” he waves. “We can make a trade. No offense but I’m sure Léonie would be happy.”

Lucas flips him off, offended, and Eliott starts laughing — the sound sends fucking butterflies in Lucas’ stomach. Before he can even say that Sarah would murder him with her bare hands for being kicked out of Eliott’s group, he’s already standing up in a jump and walking right to the white board where the schedule is written, slaloming his way between the group of third-years and their chairs occupying most of the space.

“What the fuck are you doing?” Lucas whisper-screams as he bolts up and follows suit, just when Eliott wipes Sarah’s name off the board. “Do you have a death wish or what?”

“Chassart likes me, he won’t say a thing,” Eliott shrugs, then he pauses halfway through wiping off Lucas’ name too and turns to him. “Unless you like being mistreated?” he asks, waggling his eyebrows.

“Are you fucking serious now?” Lucas huffs, another wave of laughter erupting from deep within Eliott’s chest. On the other side of the lobby, a flock of people is emerging from the depths of one of the dozen auditoriums, making his attention snap back to reality. Chances are that Chassart will be here in a matter of minutes, maybe seconds even. “Alright, but just move your ass already!”

Eliott grins, blinding, and wipes the few other mentions of Lucas on the schedule, while Lucas is busy fumbling on the table aligned against the wall to find the black pen they need. He manages to find it under a bunch of papers sitting there and to toss it in Eliott’s hands. He has to admit, Eliott’s recklessness forces the admiration. Chassart is a bit of a psycho, there’s no fucking way he’s getting away with it.

And yet. He keeps watching as Eliott is writing his name down, in small caps that he isn’t even remotely trying to make similar to their teacher’s messy handwriting, until it’s all done and Eliott closes the pen with a satisfying click of the cap.

“Lucas!”

They spin around in time to see their teacher walking inside their designated area of the lobby. “What are you doing here?” Chassart asks bluntly, ever so amiable. “And what’s that camera doing here? I told Léonie that the interview was delayed to this afternoon!”

Lucas’ stomach churns and he hates it. _Fucking asshole_, he thinks, but he doesn’t really know if it’s about Léonie or about Chassart.

“I took Lucas with me,” Eliott says, barely more serious than he was two minutes before — meanwhile, all the fucking alarms go off in Lucas’ head, as Chassart’s eyes dart onto Eliott. “I needed him for something, so I made a trade.”

There’s a one-second blank, and behind Chassart’s back, Lucas can see Arthur making a ‘what the fuck?’ face. _I’m going to die, that’s what’s happening_, he wants to say, and if telepathy really is working then maybe Arthur will be able to remember his last few words.

But to Lucas’ astonishment, Chassart seems to deflate.

“Really,” he says after a pause, but it doesn’t really sound like a question. He heaves a sigh. “Alright. Whatever, if that works best for you,” he groans with an eyeroll.

A first-year slides in next to them at this moment, and it’s a much-welcomed distraction that allows Lucas to start breathing again. Chassart looks at the kid, who blabbers a question, when something nudges Lucas’ arm. His eyes jump onto Eliott, who lets him know with a subtle movement of his chin that it’s fucking time to move.

“See?”, Eliott says to him once they’ve retreated a couple of meters away. “I told you it was going to be fine.”

“Tell that to my fucking heart,” Lucas mumbles grumpily.

**MERCREDI 13:01**

“Why did you pick cinema as your major now anyway?”

Lucas looks up from his kebab, halfway through making a fool of himself thanks to an uncooperative tomato. Eliott’s questioning eyes are on him, which would be fine if they weren’t so piercing and intimidating all at once that his skin literally _prickles_ under them.

They are on their five-minute lunch break, but rather than running like madmen to the McDonald’s next door to wait in line desperately long for a mere box of chicken nuggets and a few cooling French fries, like they all did twice a day since the beginning of the week, Eliott insisted that they push their luck to the kebab place across from the crowded parking lot.

And, well, like most things with Eliott Demaury, apparently, it had all gone too fast for Lucas to even process. Before he even realized they were ordering food and sitting down to eat.

Just the two of them. In a particularly silent restaurant.

That too would be totally fine. In another universe. Where he doesn’t have to smear mayonnaise all over his face and end up with a mouthful of tomato and kebab meat when Eliott Demaury happens to be willing to make conversation.

He has to bite down onto the sliced vegetable to tear it into pieces and free himself from the embarrassment, which ends up feeling like the longest seconds of his life. “I wanted to stay in that school,” he says after hastily swallowing down. He reaches for a paper napkin to wipe his mouth clean. “My dad moved away and since it was no longer in my designated area, it was the only solution. That or European section, but I know basically three words in English and my grades aren’t good enough to get in there, so yeah,” he shrugs and spreads his hands, “here I am, I guess.”

Eliott’s brow furrows, and it makes Lucas swoon a little bit. That story isn’t even remotely interesting by any means. But somehow, there’s something in Eliott that makes it seem like it’s a big deal that deserves his undivided attention. He’s not even sure his _dad_ gave him half this amount of attention when Lucas told him about his plans for the new school year.

“You literally went from S to L _just_ to stay in that school?”, Eliott asks, looking surprised.

Lucas makes a face. “Yeah. Stupid uh? To be fair I was lame with science and physics. I only liked math.” He realizes something just as he’s picking up a French fry in his plate. “How do you even know I was a S student?”

Eliott takes a sip from his Coca Cola before answering with a grin. “Alex is pretty chatty at night. I guess that’s the only perk of being the new guy, everyone wants you to have the audio-detailed version of everything that went down, ever.”

The way he has to look at him, waggling his eyebrows once to mark his words, makes Lucas feel naked and exposed. How much did Alex tell him exactly? How much does Alex care about him anyway? They do hang out sometimes, and Alex has been dropping by every now and then in the dorm he shares with Arthur and Basile, but that’s mostly it. Ending up in a street fight with him doesn’t magically forge lifelong ties, so he does wonder. It’s always been a strange feeling to think that people might care about him, especially when it’s someone he barely knows. The most he’s talked with Eliott until today has been a quick ‘hi’ at some point last September — a little breathy on Lucas’ part, actually. Really, not his finest moment. But if anything, he blamed it (and still does, and will probably keep blaming it until his dying breath) on the fact that he hadn’t expected the new third-year to look like _that_. If he had gotten the memo, then maybe he’d have reacted otherwise and not looked like he had been struck by lightning.

“What about you?”, he says, trying to sound casual as he grabs a few fries. There’s the nagging reminder, at the back of his head, that they’re supposed to hurry the fuck up if they want to make it back in time for the movie, but it’s not fair that is only shot at talking with Eliott should be reduced to nothing just because. “Why did you switch schools just before the BAC?”

He’s heard stories, or rather _theories_, about why he transferred, but if anything they all seem pretty stupid and rarely seem to work with reality. Last time he heard about it, he was chilling with the drama kids in their assigned work room at school between two periods, and Daphné said, with a trembling voice, that he had gotten involved with shady kids at his former school, including some who had a record already. He could not really tell if it was supposed to be a bad thing or not in Daphné’s books, given her excitement over sharing that particular rumor.

Eliott doesn’t really acknowledge that he’s talked for a good minute, looking too absorbed in the content of his plate to bother, and Lucas wonders briefly if he should repeat himself or not.

After an agonizing silence, Eliott finally glances up, looking awfully serious. “My parents sent me away from Paris because I helped my twin sister run away with her boyfriend,” he says, and Lucas blinks slowly, trying to keep his eyebrows from jumping up. “They didn’t approve of their relationship, and we’re like, related somehow. A whole mess.”

For a moment Lucas doesn’t say anything and simply stares, silently, as Eliott takes a sip from his drink.

“Did you really just give me the shitty plot of Riverdale?”, Lucas deadpans. A wide grin blooms on Eliott’s face, eyes crinkling and dimples popping out, and Lucas has no other option but to huff a laugh that sounds fonder than expected. “You’re such an ass.”

“But the fact that you’re finding it shitty makes me love you even more,” Eliott shrugs, crumpling a paper napkin between his hands.

He’s too busy checking the time on his phone to notice the way Lucas nearly chokes on his food — which, honestly, might be best for everyone.

**MECREDI** ** 17:48**

The afternoon rolls around quickly, most of it being taken over by the interview Eliott is busy directing. At least the director is a nice guy in his forties who’s mostly grateful to have been invited at all, so it makes everyone relax a little — everyone except Eliott, whose level of concentration probably amounts that of a mine-clearer. Lucas, for his part, is mostly busy stealing glances at him, but it’s not like his job is a difficult one. Eliott has put him behind the monitor, so the majority of his task is just sitting on a chair behind the screen and making sure the fishpole doesn’t just appear at the top — _The place where you’ll do the least amount of damage_, Eliott has said, grinning, and he was rewarded by a kick of Lucas’ elbow in the stomach.

It should probably have bothered him, to be just an obstacle or something, but he can’t decently argue with Eliott’s reasoning, mostly because he’s right. He knows next to nothing about literally _anything_ and he’d rather sit back and do nothing than to make Eliott mad at him.

He blames it on team work, that relevance that Eliott suddenly acquired in his life since this morning.

It’s because they’re working together and because Eliott Demaury is so much more used to all of this that _suddenly _the guy he’s been talking to only once prior to this day turns into the person he’s looking for in a crowd. It’s got nothing to do with his good looks.

“The movie’s about to start,” Arthur says after checking the schedule. “We should go now.”

Thanks to Chassart’s careful planning, it’s the most he’s heard from his friend since they left school after breakfast this morning.

Lucas doesn’t mean to do it, but while he hums in response, his body shifts towards where Eliott is standing. He’s chatting with Alex, retrieving his jacket from the back of his chair, and soon they’re already walking away to cross the lobby.

He blames the way his heart clenches on the fact that Alex could have told him to join too.

He knows Alex.

Alex knows him — well enough, apparently, to tell stuff about him to the new guy. It was only the least he could do, the _polite _thing to do. But he doesn’t, and Lucas simply stares as Eliott and Alex join two or three more of their classmates, before the group disappears in the depths of carpeted halls.

Yeah. It’s all because of Alex, he decides as he finally follows Arthur through the lobby.


End file.
